Hodler Stars at Sotheby’s Swiss-Art Sale

June 29, 2010 1:22pm

PARIS—Sotheby’s Zurich sale of Swiss art brought in a total of CHF15.85million ($13.8million) on June 14. Of 113 lots offered, 80, or 71 percent were sold. The auction was 89 percent sold by value. Sotheby’s director and Swiss-art expert Urs Lanter called it “one of the strongest sale totals ever in this category for Sotheby’s since Swiss art auctions were first launched in 1979.”

The auction featured masterworks by Ferdi­nand Hodler (1853–1918), Giovanni Giacometti (1868–1933) and Félix Vallotton (1865-1925). The top seller of the evening was Hodler’s Genfersee von Chexbres Aus, 1911, a landscape painting from a private Swiss collection, which fetched CHF4million ($3.48million) against an estimate of CHF4million/6million. Another landscape by Hodler from the same collection, Sommer­landschaft bei Interlaken, ca. 1888, sold for CHF1.5million ($1.3million), the bottom of its estimate of CHF1.5million/2million.

The auction offered major works by Giacometti, including an early landscape, Die Maira bei Stampa, 1904–5, which sold for CHF3million ($2.6million), surpassing its estimate of CHF1.8million/2.5million. His painting of a lake in the summertime, Am Cavlocciosee, 1921, sold for CHF2.4million ($2.1million), surpassing its estimate of CHF1.2million/1.5million.

The offerings included two works by Vallotton: Bois de Boulogne, 1919, a landscape painting of a Parisian park, which fetched CHF578,500 ($503,000) against a CHF350,000/450,000 estimate, and Paysage à Locquirec, 1902, which sold for CHF194,500 ($169,000), within its estimate of CHF150,000/250,000.

Two works by Swiss artist Albert Anker (1831–1910) also sparked healthy bidding. The first lot of the evening, Portrait, Marie Anker, 1881, a near-life-size portrait of the artist’s nine-year-old daughter, bettered its estimate of CHF300,000/500,000 to sell for CHF530,500 ($461,000). Anker’s Strickende Bernerin mit Kind, 1898, sold for CHF938,500 ($816,000), above the CHF700,000/900,000 estimate. A colorful 1913 painting by Cuno Amiet of a mother and daughter topped its estimate of CHF100,000/150,000, selling for CHF290,500 ($253,000).